Plan your visit to India now for the Year End

Fourth International Rationalist Conference

26-29 December 2006 at New Delhi

For more details and registration, write to
Conference@rationalistinternational.net

Kuwait: Women candidates contesting parliamentary elections

Dr. Rola Dashti (right)

In Kuwait, gender equality has made a great leap forward. For the first time in the history of the oil-rich Gulf emirate, women candidates have registered for the parliamentary elections scheduled for 29 June. Dr. Rola Dashti, chairperson of the Kuwaiti Economic Society and leading women’s rights activist, was the first woman to file her papers at the election department, when the registration opened. Four more women followed suit.

Since establishment of the Kuwaiti parliament in 1962, women had been banned from participation in politics. In a historic vote of the Assembly in May 2005, they won the right to vote and to run for public office. Since then, two women contested a municipal by-election last April. One of them received the second highest ranking among the candidates running for one seat.

The coming parliamentary elections were called, after the parliament was dissolved over a deep political crisis over an electoral reform bill that demands reduction of the number of constituencies.

Nepal: Dethroning Lord Vishnu

World’s only Hindu kingdom becomes a secular state

By Sanjeev Neopadi

King Gyanendra

Prime Minister Koirala

On May 18, 2006, Nepal celebrated a great historical achievement. The parliament passed a resolution declaring the only existing Hindu kingdom a secular state and reducing the king to a figure-head leader. The resolution was the first major act of the new seven-party interim government under Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala that came to power in April, after uncontrollable mass protests, triggered by Maoist insurgents, forced King Gyanendra to step down.

The king of Nepal is worshipped as an incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu. In 2002, a worldwide umbrella organization of Hindu bodies declared Gyanendra also the "World Hindu Emperor". Last November, Nepal’s attorney general claimed in the Supreme Court the king was above any man-made constitution and his responsibilities of divine nature. Now the resolution curbs his religious as well as his worldly powers by stripping him from his army command, legal immunity and freedom from paying taxes. Huge crowds, rallying in all major cities of the country, welcomed the move enthusiastically. The government declared a public holiday.

To be enacted, the resolution has now to be voted in as a series of newly drafted laws. This is expected to happen within a few days. A special assembly is to be elected to rewrite the constitution, which will also finally decide if the king will be allowed to keep a ceremonial role (as the Koirala-Government wishes), or if Nepal will completely abolish the monarchy and become a republic.

The state of Nepal exists since 1768. Only in 1962, it was declared a Hindu kingdom, when King Mahendra, father of Gyanendra (and his murdered, more people-friendly brother Birendra), dissolved parliament, rewrote the constitution and usurped absolute powers. In the census, 85 per cent of the 27 million Nepalese use to be accounted Hindus, though most of the 59 ethnic groups are maintaining their traditional tribal religions, some of them with animist or Buddhist background. The construct of a homogenous Hindu majority was maintained in close cooperation between the palace of “Lord Vishnu” and the Nepali brother organization of the Hindu extremist Indian RSS, which was provided huge funds, when the pro-democracy movement gathered momentum in last November. Now moderate protest against the declaration of a secular Nepal arose only in two districts bordering India and was obviously inspired by Indian Hindu organizations. They fear – quite realistically - that a secular Nepal will become a hunting ground of Christian missionaries. Because of anti-conversion laws, missionary activities had so far been limited to under-cover operations. A recent survey lists Nepal as the country with the by far highest number of foreign NGOs (non-governmental organizations) proportionate to the population. Many of them are known to have Christian links; some are agents of political forces. The “Roof of the World”, as the small state in the high altitudes of the Himalayas is called, is not only for Christian crusaders of immense geo-political and strategic interest.

Norway: Thinking about secularism...

By Sven Andersen

Jens Stoltenberg

In 1537, Norway adopted the Lutheran Christian religion as state religion by a royal decree. Till today, 469 years later, it did not come out of the historical nexus between monarchy and state church. The system remains stable, as it is safely embedded in the constitution. Every citizen is born as a church member - and remains one as long as he or she is not determined to face all disadvantages and leave the church. Few of the 4.6 million Norwegians are, if they do not happen to belong to minority religious families like many immigrants. Another safeguard for the system is the constitutional rule that at least half of the ministers of any government have to be church members. A party that has - by chance or principle – no church members or just not enough of them is excluded from full power. After a spell of eight years under a Lutheran priest as Norwegian prime minister, the winds have slightly changed in last September. The new PM Jens Stoltenberg, heading a red-green coalition government, is himself not member of the church - though his coalition partners are. Under the new government, the privileges of the state church became a matter of public criticism, after the International Helsinki Committee demanded a change of Section 12 of the Constitution, the minister quota rule, as it violates freedom of religion and contravenes Human Rights conventions of the United Nations as well as the European Council. In January 2006, 18 of the 20 members of the Storting (Norwegian parliament) recommended to consider the separation of state and church. Only four of them, however, wanted the Lutheran church to lose its privileged special status. The first hearing in the matter took place at the end of April. It was decided to take the opinions of 2500 groups and people - including all church congregations - about the idea of separation till December 2006. If opinions turn out to be favorable in December, a draft for constitutional amendment could be worked out and eventually passed by the Storting.

But that alone would not be enough. The Norwegian constitution - the iron heart of the church-government nexus – is triple protected. It cannot be changed, even if the members of parliament vote for a change. Only if the amendment is passed and approved by two consecutive parliaments, it has chances to come through! That means that under no circumstances anything can move before 2014!

Management changes in Humanist Umbrella

Sonja Eggerickx

Suresh Lalvani, Company Secretary and Director Operations of the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU), reports some management changes.

Controversial former President Roy Brown has retired from the Executive Committee. New President is Sonja Eggerickx, a senior school inspector from Belgium and longtime EC member. Larry Jones has been elected First Vice President; Roar Johnsen, Jack Jeffery and Rob Buitenweg are Vice Presidents. Treasurer is Roger Lepeix. Of the two employed officers, Suresh Lalvani will continue as the Company Secretary and Director of Operations, while Babu Gogineni, formerly stationed as Executive Director in the London office, has returned to his native state Andhra Pradesh in South India. From there he will undertake important developmental work for the IHEU focusing South Asia and Africa.